


The Persecuted Son Returns

by writeitininkorinblood



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Young Academy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 08:36:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18091022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeitininkorinblood/pseuds/writeitininkorinblood
Summary: Ben waits up for Klaus to come home from 'training', unaware of quite how shaken up his brother will be.





	The Persecuted Son Returns

Ben had been waiting for Klaus to come home. Their father had taken him away with no explanation and no advance warning and all Ben could think about was that scared look in Klaus’ eyes when he’d been ordered out of his room and down the stairs. Whatever this was, whatever specialist training Klaus was being made to do, it was far more intense than anything they’d done before. When Reginald came back that evening without Klaus, Ben had only gotten more worried. What if he didn’t come back at all? He’d been too afraid to ask so he hadn’t slept at all that night, propping his door open and listening carefully for any sound of his brother coming home. Morning came before any footsteps did.

The day was quiet without Klaus. None of the others really bothered to speak to Ben unless absolutely necessary, because he rarely had much to say back. Klaus, though, would witter endlessly without concern if anyone was really listening. Ben hadn’t realised how much of the background noise of the Academy was just Klaus – talking, singing, stomping around in Grace’s heels in his bedroom. Without him, their regular lessons were dull and tense. It was impossible for the others to not have noticed Klaus’ absence themselves, but they weren’t brave enough to ask about it either.

They were all getting ready for bed that night when the front door to the Academy slammed shut. Grace didn’t even flinch from where she was putting away freshly pressed uniforms in the wardrobe, but Ben knew it meant Reginald had left. Which meant Klaus might be coming back. There was no way Ben was sleeping until he had returned, and the tension around Klaus’ absence seemed to have inspired a similar restlessness in his other siblings, even if they weren’t ones to sit around and worry. Diego and Luther were racing round the halls, Vanya still seemed to be practising violin in her room, Allison was pestering Grace to be allowed just one more cookie, and Five had still been fervently flicking through a selection of books Ben didn’t understand that he’d spread around himself on the floor. The Academy wasn’t complete, wasn’t calm.

Half an hour went by before the door sounded again. Ben wanted to leap up and see if Klaus was home, but if he was then that meant Reginald was too and he didn’t want to face that wrath. If it was Klaus, he’d soon see him running past the door to his own room. So Ben tried to be patient. After about five minutes, someone did finally pass the gap Ben had wedged open in his door with a slipper, but they weren’t running.

Klaus’ face was paler than Ben had ever seen, and even in the dark and with the distance between them, it was obvious something was very wrong. He seemed to be on autopilot, staring straight ahead with wide eyes as he headed up the corridor. Considering he seemed to be alone, Ben kicked off his duvet and slipped out his room to dart across the hall to Klaus’. Technically they weren’t supposed to be out of their rooms at night, but he was willing to risk it to find out if everything was okay.

“Klaus?” he whispered, pushing open the door.

The first thing he noticed was that all the lights were on. Klaus had flipped the switch to the ceiling light on his way in, but he’d also turned on the lamp at his desk and another on his bedside table. Once he’d blinked his way through the temporary blindness of the bright lights, Ben found Klaus sat on his bed, tucked as far into the corner as he could get himself. He had his knees up around his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around them, and he looked like he’d seen every horror of the world displayed before him. There were still tear tracks down his cheeks and his eyes were scrubbed red in attempts to clear the tears away. He didn’t even seem to register there was someone in the room, staring ahead like he was catatonic.

“What happened?” Ben asked, panicking a little when he got no response. “Klaus, please, what’s wrong?”

When he took a few steps closer, it became evident that Klaus was shaking. Sensing he wasn’t going to get a response, Ben grabbed the blanket from the end of the bed and tucked it over Klaus’ knees. He knew it wasn’t cold that was making Klaus shudder, but he wasn’t sure what else to do. It wasn’t like he could go to their father for help, since he was obviously the reason this had happened in the first place.

“You’re home and you’re safe,” Ben tried, but with no way of knowing what Klaus had been through there was little he could do to be reassuring.

He sat beside his brother and awkwardly put an arm around him. The wall was more than a little in the way and Klaus wasn’t particularly receptive, so he had to bend his elbow uncomfortably, but he wasn’t sure how else to be supportive. It was strange for Klaus to be so quiet and Ben felt an intense desire to fill the silence. He’d never usually be the one to speak much, but this was clearly a special circumstance. Whatever had happened, he could guess it had been something to do with Klaus’ power and he knew how much his brother hated the ability he’d been born with. And that was something Ben could definitely relate to.

“You know I hate it too, right?” he began. “My powers? I don’t want them. I know we’ve helped some people but we’ve hurt a lot of people too. And maybe some of those people are bad, but they’re still _people_. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

It seemed to begin to work. Klaus’ shaking lessened until he was still and the tension in his body relaxed just a little and Ben could finally shift the blanket to around his shoulders so it could do a better job of keeping him warm. He was listening, if nothing else, and so Ben kept taking, He tried to explain why he hated his powers and that he understood why Klaus hated his too. When he said he would take Klaus’ away if he could, he heard the first sound from his brother. He just wished it wasn’t a sob.

Klaus had been grounding himself in each word Ben said, allowing it to pull him back to the land of the living. At first he’d thought his brother might be dead, walking in out of the darkness like that, but he’d rather see the ghost of Ben than the ghosts he’d been locked in with at the mausoleum so he wasn’t about to complain. Then Ben had moved the blanket and had put an arm around him and Klaus knew he was real. The one good thing about the spirits was that they couldn’t touch him. Listening to someone he knew speak, someone who wasn’t going to hurt him, was infinitely reassuring and he knew it wasn’t something Ben usually felt comfortable doing. Eventually the awareness of how much Ben cared was too overwhelming and the numbness he’d imposed around his mind as a shield against the spirits faded enough to the point where he could finally feel something again and tears started to fall from his eyes. He'd been so flooded by other people's emotions in the mausoleum that he'd worried he’d never feel anything of his own again.

The second Ben realised Klaus was crying, he stopped talking. It was never his intention to make him feel worse.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-” he began to apologise, but he was interrupted by a voice at the door.

“Just leave him, Ben. He needs to grow up,” Luther said, his arms folded across his chest in an attempt towards authority. When he’d heard a voice coming from Klaus’ room he had let his curiosity get the better of him to see if his brother was back, but he hadn’t expected to find Ben to be the one talking and Klaus a hunched, deflated shell of himself.

Whenever Luther acted like being number one made him older or more important, Ben usually caved to it. It wasn’t worth the argument trying to stand up to him would cause, but Klaus was clearly traumatised and Luther didn’t even seem to _care_.  
“He’s our brother. And he’s upset.”

They were all surprised to hear Ben talk back like that. Klaus still hadn’t spoken himself, but he leaned a little against Ben’s side in a silent thank you.

“It was just training,” Luther shrugged, not moving from the doorway.

“When has ‘training’ ever made you claw off your own skin?” Ben hissed. He hadn’t mentioned it to Klaus, had been working hard not to stare, but it was unmistakable.

Klaus had forgotten about the searing pain across the back of his hands and up his arms as far as he could push up his shirt cuffs. He looked down and realised his skin was raw and scratched up, streaky with nail marks – a futile but compulsive attempt to replace the mental pain with something physical. Tugging down his sleeves and pressing his hands between his knees, he tried to hide the marks but they’d all already seen.

Despite his attempt to stay stoic, Luther recoiled at quite how badly Klaus had destroyed his own hands. The remark he’d had in mind wasn’t quite appropriate anymore and he didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t in his nature to comfort his brother – that wasn’t how they’d been raised. Ben was the exception to that rule and he’d care about anyone if they let him, but Luther knew their father just wanted them to be stronger. Whatever Klaus had been through, it was for the best.

“He needs to grow up. Overcome his fears,” Luther repeated forcefully, trying to ignore the way Klaus flinched at the words and tried to tuck himself even further into the corner. Whatever was going on, he didn’t want to be a part of it. So he escaped back to his own room, leaving Ben to deal with the mess that was their brother.

Once they were left alone in the brightness of the room again, Ben sighed.

“Luther is a prick,” he whispered.

For the first time since his father had dragged him away, Klaus smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr (https://numberfourhargreeves.tumblr.com) for more of this nonsense I guess... :')


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